Tulchuherris

Overview

Nomhawena finds Tulchuherris while digging roots: a child’s cry moves beneath the soil until she turns over the central clod and uncovers him. He grows rapidly under her care. A voice from the sky names him and urges him to survive. When his guardian explains that Sas’s household has killed her relatives, including his brother Kulitek, the young hero determines to go east despite her warnings.

He prepares flint fingernails, thorn clothing, green-stone shoes, a pointed bone and supernatural hunting equipment. A panther and a fox accompany him as dogs. Nomhawena supplies the tiny Winishuyat, hidden beneath his bound hair, whose instructions repeatedly save him. Tulchuherris overturns Tichelis’s lethal rock and changes its keeper into a ground squirrel; he wounds a treacherous river carrier and turns him into Hawt, a lamprey eel. These are explicit personal transformations, unlike the collective metamorphoses concluding the Norwan cycle.

At Saskewil he becomes husband to Sas’s two daughters while their parents continue trying to kill him. His dogs destroy bears and snakes, his thorns intercept poisonous spiders, and his flint nails blind the mother before her fatal gaze reaches him. He escapes falling knives and a smoke trap, leaving spittle to imitate his groans. Other supposed household errands conceal snake nests and attacking bears. At a false spring fouled with victims’ remains he makes clean water for two surviving strangers.

Ordered to catch fish, he spears Sas’s son Supchit and nearly drowns until a gopher from his moccasin blocks the underwater escape holes. In the final tree-bending contest he evades being flung away, then launches Sas into the sky with a tremendous pull. Sas splits into the larger sun and smaller moon. Tulchuherris assigns their courses and ornaments; Olelbis subsequently confirms the sun’s daily east-to-west path. The narrative ends with Sas’s instructions, without a narrated homecoming of Tulchuherris to his grandmother.

Curtin interprets the hero as lightning or electricity and discusses the earth as his mother. Those explanations belong to the collector’s note. In the story itself a found child, an adoptive grandmother’s care, protective animals, crafted objects and the hidden adviser all contribute to his success; his physical strength does not make guidance unnecessary.

Origins & earliest records

Wintu narrative Tulchuherris in Jeremiah Curtin’s Creation Myths of Primitive America (1898). California collection; the chapter does not identify an individual narrator.

Records & interpretation

Complete Tulchuherris pp. 121–160, including Sas’s final instructions from Olelbis, and complete note pp. 503–505 read. Collector interpretations of lightning, the earth and European parallels are distinguished from narrated actions.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Creation Myths of Primitive America in Relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind

   Jeremiah Curtin · 1898

   Complete Tulchuherris121–160; selected passages 121–160; note503–505; collection provenance486–487.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textCurtin1898: complete TulchuherrisResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.